Rebuilding

Posted on Wed Dec 18th, 2013 @ 9:51pm by Lieutenant Augustus Deakin & Lieutenant William O'Donnell

Mission: Picking Up the Pieces
Location: Main Engineering

[ON]

Gus stood silently in the midst of it all, watching the throng of engineers and technicians swarm around him as though he wasn't even there. He was looking for the guy in charge and only knew two things about him: he was a Bajoran and he was a full lieutenant. If the Chief Engineer had been a Bolian his smooth blue skin would doubtless give him away in a heartbeat, but Gus wasn't so lucky. Instead he found himself peering at the noses and rank insignia of the countless gold-shouldered officers and crew darting here and there and paying him all the attention that locals pay to some neglected statue in a public square.

After a few moments, he gave up looking and decided to take a more active approach to his search. His younger self would probably have just tapped his commbadge and called Lieutenant Le, but Gus was no longer his younger self and he was still getting used to that little device attached to his chest.

“Who’s in charge here?” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, breaking out his old first sergeant voice.

Everybody stopped, or at least slowed down and looked at the curious giant suddenly standing amongst them. Gus couldn't help but smirk to himself - At least with them all looking at me, I can tell the Bajorans from the humans.

"Hey YOU. Unless yer here to help would ya mind keepin' the racket down to a dull roar. We've got alot of work ta do and little time ta do it." William replied annoyedly at the man

"Now would you all please get back ta what ye were doin'."

Gus smiled at the owner of the Irish lilt as the throng of people went about their work. It was the smile he had that usually left the observer uncertain about whether his intentions were friendly or sinister. "As a matter of fact I am here to help," he said, taking a few steps toward the engineer. "I'm Lieutenant Deakin, Chief of Operations. I need to chat with Lieutenant Le about his storage woes. Where might I find him?"

Oh great...the geek squad just wha I be needin William said to himself letting out a long drawn sigh.

"Son I haven't a clue who Lieutenant Le be or where he be hiding. I also dunnot care about storage eitha. I be worried about the HUGE HOLE in the side of yer star base and fixin the backyerd jury riggin' tha someone thought would act as a power grid. I've seen pre-warp savages put conduits better.." O'Donnell grunted.

'Son'? Gus hadn't been called 'son' since at least before he turned forty. He savoured it a moment, tossed it around in his mind to see how it felt while the engineer kept talking and decided he did not like it. If he had crossed paths with this ill-tempered Irishman just a couple of months earlier, he might have grabbed him by his uniform tunic and shoved him into the nearest bulkhead, applying just enough pressure on his throat to stop his damn talking ...

But he was back in the service now. He had to put all of that behind him and handle difficult situations in a more civilised way. With that thought at the forefront of his mind, Gus decided he needed to get himself out of this situation.

He stood over the engineer, using his height advantage to talk down at him. There was about a ten centimetre height difference and Gus made good use of it. He spoke slowly and deliberately, "Listen to me, lad," he began. "When it comes time to get your head out of the power grid and start patching that great big hole, you are going to need places to store materials and equipment needed to plug it."

The operations chief paused and slowly replaced his grim expression with a friendlier one. "So, when that time comes and your chief engineer starts shouting at you to find a place to store several hundred thousand tons of tritanium ..." he brushed some grime off the engineer's shoulder, "... come and see me."

WIlliam laughed heartedly right in the Ops chief face. "Oh, ye be a good one." he said waving his index finger. "Thing is LAD, I AM the Chief Engineer, the man in charge AND I already have both Captain Von and Starfleet Engineering's assurances of FULL cooperation. So if ye be done we can let tha big boys go back ta werk and ye can go back to countin' relays."

So, Le was gone. That would have been nice to know, Gus thought. He couldn't really hold not being told against anyone given the general fog of chaos that purveyed the entire Starbase. But he could hold this new chief engineer's attitude against him.

"Listen, mate, I don't care if you have latinum-plated assurances from the President himself," Gus shrugged. "Delivering on those assurances falls to me and that means I determine the best, most efficient way of cooperating with your department. I'm not the guy you want to piss off, sport."

He took a breath but kept talking before the engineer could speak again. "Now, you're clearly busy changing lightbulbs and scrubbing decks so when you're ready to talk about the massive storage problem about to bite you in the arse, come see me. Until then, good day, Lieutenant."

The big ops officer turned on his heel and marched toward the exit.

William shook his head in dismay. "Oy Greenhorn, so much ta learn."

He turned to an engineering ensign. "C'mon son, we be havin' alotta lightbulbs to fix so we better get to it."

[OFF]


Lieutenant Augustus Deakin
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant William O'Donnell
Chief Engineer
Starbase 332